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Tuesday, December 09, 2008

The wood nymphs, it would seem, have turned on the Christmas elves, with disastrous results.

What Anthropologie tried to do: Deck the walls of its State Street location in a festive, holiday manner. Picture it: The walls themselves spilling forth with a cornucopia of handmade winter vegetables. Lovely, right?

What Anthropologie accomplished: The fact that the cloth produce occupied the squarish, recessed areas on the store’s back wall gave the display the appearance of surgically removed patches of skin with all manner of festering unpleasantness beneath. The reds, oranges, pinks and browns of the decorations themselves recall exposed guts and assorted butcher shop discards. It’s as if the wall itself were the surface of some giant, department store-sized creature that has been lacerated and whose insides are leaking. The white woodland creatres standing before the gooey grossness are presumably there to feast upon it.

The proof:

What you should take away from this: Anthropologie wants you to remember this Christmas — by any means possible.

3 comments:

Now that it looks like they're supporting murder and all manner of horrible horror movie-esque things, I think I actually want to shop at Anthropologie more. I recall another odd window display, back during the News-Press meltdown. Anthropologie created hot-air balloons and birds and such from old copies of the News-Press, many of which had artistic holes cut out of them. (Which would make that hot air balloon damned hard to fly, right?) My editor and I asked inside if the holes/air-themed display were intended to be a comment about the News-Press meltdown, and the shop girl replied that the company merely told them to "make their windows about stuff that's lighter than air." I'm sure similarly vague instructions from corporate rendered those gorgeous gut-veggies you've so artfully captured.

How did you even determine that this was supposed to represent vegetables? What the hell kind of a vegetable looks like a small intestine wriggling out from between folds the large intestine, garnished with festive wheat grass?

St. Clare: Was the store saying that the NP news authority lacking in gravity and therefore worthless?

Dina: Now that you mention it, I'm not sure what made me think the display was supposed to be vegetables, but that was my first reaction. I think it is still, but perhaps that's because I can't imagine what else it could be.